


The Poetry of Reality

by cosmotronic



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Nobody Dies, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Relationship, Realisations, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:37:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: Everything in Erin's world is explainable, definable, quantifiable.  Until it is not.





	1. Event

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit different.
> 
> Shout out to tigerlo for telling me I'm not crazy ;)

 

Physics is the study of the movement of objects in space.

Erin has studied it all her life. Studies it even now, observes the way the universe unfolds before her as they enter the factory, four lone pieces in a vastness. She notes the environment and the observables, feeds in her data and discards the superfluous. Crunches the numbers without a thought; it’s only instinct, the muscle memory of a million neurons firing all at once.

She could draw the equations over the scene, variables and constants and direction writ in glass marker on the window of her eyes.

Erin feels the anticipation in the beat of her pulse, the jump in her gut. Holtz hums beside her, vibrating with potential.

It all happens so fast; the potential becoming an event before Erin can even calculate the probabilities, ponder the possibilities. Actions set into motion and inevitable, a hummingbird flap to signal a hurricane.

“I’ve got this one, ladies!”

Holtz charges. Grinning and brave, and _reckless_ to the unobservant onlooker. Erin knows the motive in the movements, however, sees the interjection between her and _it_.

Erin’s chest clenches even as her heart soars and her breath hitches, but her cheeks flush and she smiles and it’s fondness and something else and it’s all _biology_ and a mystery to Erin.

Holtz races onwards, proton gun slung low and thumb itching. Erin follows, her comrades only half a step behind.

Erin’s ears pop, suddenly, a rush of sensation into her brain. There’s ozone and anticipation in the air, tang on her tongue, bristle in her nose and a coiling dread urges her to hasten her step.

Special relativity states that the faster an object moves, the heavier it gets.

Erin wonders if this is why her legs are suddenly like lead, wallowing through a mire.

They knew this call could be bad. They should have paused and come up with a game plan before rushing in, she knows. It’s difficult, though, when Holtz’s playbook is so different from her own meticulous preparations and their friends’ cautious methods.

Erin _observes_. Holtz just _does_.

Another second passes and the gap between them grows wider. Holtz raises her weapon and the shape of a taunt forms in the air.

 _“_ Hey ugl-”

Malevolent red turns to meet her bright bravery.

The ghost is strong; force of will makes its hatred corporeal, all its dripping malice realised in a huge and terrifying form. It doesn’t float but stands firm, as one with the earth as Erin or Holtz or any of them. Energy flicking and licking shades of blue about a dark shape, shadow deep and steel electric. It smashes a sparking limb into Holtz just as the proton beam crackles to life, swipes her aside.

The crackle sputters out and the taunt is lost to echo and the sudden agitation in the air. The sound of solid hate striking flesh is oddly quiet and dull, like a stone smacking into wet sand next to the roar of the ocean. Erin thinks she hears a soft grunt, in between the howls of fury that rattle their surroundings.

Erin observes some more. Soft flesh crumples before the blow, arms jerk and a head snaps and a body buckles as Holtz is propelled backward. A ragdoll form that moves through the air almost gracefully, a perfect arc in angle and momentum.

The faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time.

To Erin, the inertial observer, Holtz’s fall seems to last forever. Erin thinks she could reach out and stop it, if only her body was not bound by such cruel and immutable laws. But she knows that by the time the light of the moment reaches her eyes and her mind can comprehend it, that moment is gone, sucked into the black and irretrievable.

Erin thinks she should scream, instead, but her mouth gapes in stupidity and she can only watch as the force is transferred.

Holtz crumples, when the concrete wall meets her tumble. There’s a crash and a muted thud and Holtz does not move.

In a simultaneity, time is absolute.

The sudden stillness is a sharp and loud reminder, a starting crack to set the universe running from the blocks at a sprint, seconds pounding like footprints and heartbeats.

Erin’s reaction is measured in the points of a second. She attempts to alter her trajectory mid-stride, stumbles as she lunges for Holtz. She’s flat footed and awkward as her momentum takes her off balance and then Erin is beside her friend, landing to scuff her knees on the hard ground.

Holtz is so very, very still.

Small.

Slumped crooked against the wall and cold hard floor, proton pack smashed and smoking. Her glasses have been knocked from her face and her eyes are open, the tiniest sliver of a cerulean shine, but Holtz does not see. Her consciousness has fled with a last pained breath. Although her chest rises and falls, the motion is so minute that Erin fears she imagines it.

Erin’s fingers are like ice on her pulse point and she’s shaking too much to reckon the beat. It’s there, though, she is sure and she lets a tiny relief seep into her mind.

The ghost is still screaming, raging; still strong and still hateful and Erin curls protectively over her fallen friend as her remaining teammates struggle. They have already given up on containment and assemble to destroy. Their proton streams seem to be more annoyances to the spectre than a real danger, just tickling distractions and incitements to retaliation.

She’s aware of their worried shouts and then, their frantic appeals for help as the ghost swipes again and sends the pair scrambling for cover. Erin knows she should run to their aid but she can’t, her limbs are water and her heart is in her mouth, constricting her breaths.

There’s just too much _biology_.

Her arms wrap around Holtz’s limp form. There must be bruises and broken bones and sinister damage beneath the surface, so she is gentle as she cradles the shattered frame, loosens the straps of the heavily damaged pack.

Erin presses a hand to a slack cheek, runs trembling fingers across soft and messy hair, lifts Holtz’s head gently into her own lap.

A warmth on Erin’s palm, then, a sick realisation in crimson wet. Tears drop from her, salt to mingle with the copper, a sob set free.

“Holtz…”

There’s blood everywhere, trickling hot.

“No. Holtz.”

The ghost flares brighter. It breaks completely free of the two niggling proton streams, shrieking and thrashing now and so very, very close. Erin could never have imagined such a force of pure evil and she feels cold and sick as the feeling washes over her, over the precious thing in her arms.

No.

Her blood-soaked palm reaches and grasps her own weapon, the side-arm strapped to her hip. It’s the proton shotgun Holtz made for her, more like a cannon, really. Super-charged and dangerous, but a one-shot deal and she cannot miss.

She notes the environment and the observables, again.

Feeds in her data and discards the superfluous.

Crunches the numbers.

The ghost is almost upon them now, reaching for her and screeching its poisonous bile, so very loud. There’s an approximation of a twisted, gaping mouth below the two swirling red eyes, and it’s like looking into the fifth circle.

Erin shoots.

She cannot miss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sorry.
> 
> I've not been doing so great lately for Reasons & Shit(TM) and I've been struggling to find inspiration. In the end I kind of just grabbed on to this tiny spark of an idea and shook it until words fell out. Hope it's okay.
> 
> This fandom is so great, I want you all to know that. Readers, writers, friends. Please continue being awesome.
> 
> I [tumbl](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/) but I don't bite*
> 
>  
> 
> *okay that bit's a lie


	2. Theory

 

Physics can unlock the secrets of the universe.

Erin can use it to stare deep into the mysteries of space and time, to explore the unexplainable and to prove the unbelievable. It’s what she’s always done, sparked by a childhood desire to make them _see_ and blossoming into an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. She forgot the spark, for a time, but it was always there just beneath the surface, beneath the confusion of acceptance and denial.

She desperately wants to unlock what lies before her now.

Holtz’s eyes are closed, shutting away the mysteries within. And even though a tube distorts her lips and tape covers her nose and bandages wrap her head, her face is peaceful and enigmatic in its serenity.

Erin knows consciousness is just a pattern of electrical impulses. Personality and character; born in genes and shaped by environment but still explainable by mapping the web of connections in the brain, each one a unique and special snowflake.

Even in a world where ghosts are real and the line between the spiritual and the physical is a barrier to be toyed with, Erin never thought she’d believe in a soul.

But she has come to know; Holtz is nothing but soul. The others, too, all kind and care and light. But Holtz had said it best, when they sat and she spoke after the end of the world.

Physics cannot show us meaning. Cannot give us purpose.

Erin sighs and squeezes a limp hand in hers, careful not to disturb the line pushing the barbiturate into Holtz’s veins. She rubs her thumb over the tiny scars and rough callouses that mar the skin, marvels at the shape and form of the slender fingers in her palm. Longs for the answering squeeze that will not yet come.

Holtz’s chest rises and falls, stronger than before but there’s a machine doing most of the work, pushing air into a fragile chest just in case. There’s wires and apparatus around her, numbers and lights and a console steadily beeping out a welcome reassurance.

The wonders of technology, but really it’s all biology, again.

Right now, Holtz is at the whim of her own biology.

There had been surgery, hours of waiting and _what-ifs_. Erin’s tears had dried to salted streaks quickly and she had slumped and stared at a peeling poster on the waiting room wall, death and disinfectant in her lungs and physics dancing in her mind and biology stamping on her heart.

Erin had trembled at the list of injuries; she doesn’t know the limits of the human body like the doctors do but the frown on the surgeon’s face had told her enough. Words like _medically-induced coma_ and _the first twenty-four hours_ are all the data she needs to fit her model.

She calculates the probabilities and ponders the possibilities; she has time for that now, as she sits and seeks the meaning of life in a tiny hospital room.

Her teammates hug her tightly, later. They don’t contest the wordless assumption that Erin would be the one to stay. They just smile sadly and softly and promise to come back in a few hours. They understand the meaning of life more than she ever will, she thinks.

There’s so much Erin wants to understand. So much she wants to say.

“Holtz…”

She thinks it might be easier to say and to understand without a dazzling grin or adoring eyes or flamboyant actions or simple kindness to distract her. Easier to find the truth behind months of observations, to research this _thing_ between them in a closed environment and without complication.

But every experiment begins with a hypothesis and a hypothesis requires that one can test it.

Erin sits quietly.

Hours drift by, and then days. The others come and sometimes they talk to her and talk to Holtz and sometimes they sit quietly, too, and then they leave. Sometimes they take Erin with them, an arm around her shoulder and lead her to food, to a hot shower, to a soft bed.

She doesn’t sleep well, bears nightmares of malevolence and a crimson palm. Dreams terrifying futures of three not four, and still she sits quietly.

Her thoughts are as entropy, moving further and further from regimented order as time progresses.

Holtz had said that the purpose of life is to love.

Erin thinks wiser words have never been spoken, and though they were meant in a general sense for the others, she cannot help but consider the doublespeak left mute for her. That thing left undefined in the days and weeks and months since, a radical floating free and waiting for her to catch it in her orbit.

It’s not that Erin hasn’t loved before, not that she hasn’t gone through the tumult and the bliss and the inevitable heartache. But this is different. It sits within her, at once unsettling and a comfort, and the smile on her face whenever Holtz does something _perfect_ is a sweeter taste than anything that has bent her lips before.

And yet, they dance around each other like matter about a singularity, always on the cusp.

At first Erin had theorised it was because Holtz was a woman and there would be a natural hesitance of the implications there. Erin’s never really considered her sexuality. She’s dated only men, but she’s felt attractions to men and women and felt no shame in it; there’s not enough tangible evidence to corroborate or disprove that theory.

Holtz is just Holtz, the fact that she also happens to be a woman seems to be of low import.

Erin postulated next it was their differences that caused their reticence. And they _are_ so different from each other. Erin watches through the lens of pure science, and surrounds herself in the calm and the routine and the perfect sense of a world defined in an equation, a scrawl on a whiteboard or a meticulous note on a page. She may break out sharp and jagged when her order is interrupted, but she is the continual observer to Holtz’s wild uncertainty.

In particle physics, Holtz would be an _event_ ; a reaction always scattering and being reformed, endless energy poured in and a constant stream of new and exotic creation set free. It’s exhausting to witness, impossible to record and Erin suspects not even Holtz herself could ever truly comprehend the process.

But opposites do attract, that’s a given.

They work well together, two brilliant minds like cogs in a perfect machine, each turning at their own rate to drive a single result. They exist well together, two bodies at ease and comfortable and to the watcher on the outside they _shouldn’t_ , they should be opposing forces stubborn and unyielding and set to clash until their energies are spent.

Instead they have fun, and shine bright in each other’s eyes, and they test the boundaries of what physics can explain.

Erin sits quietly now, for days and weeks and thinks that perhaps, just sometimes, a soul could meet a soul and become _more_ and it could be real and quantifiable.

It could be simple chemistry.

Physics cannot show her the meaning of life, but Erin thinks she has found it at last in the unfocused blue staring at her, in the tiny pinch of a pale brow, in the cracked lips parting just a little.

“–ugly?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to make you smile but I do [tumbl](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/).


	3. Failure

 

Biology can be an inexact science, at times.

Certainly, there are the same immutable laws as bind other matter, the same rules and principles. Biology is crafted from chemistry, all bits and pieces of stardust and creation fit together in the production-line workshop of their physical reality.

But still, there is something a little bit different in the structures of blood and bone that talk and walk about the place.

Something a little bit like art. Human bodies built to a template but with a sculptured finish, individual details finely chiseled. Each one a personal commission for the soul that inhabits it.

Erin thinks Holtz’s form is a perfect masterwork, gazes at it sometimes and wonders how the all the fragments could have come together in such a special way. She’s soft and messy, gentle even in her wildness, and when she smiles and her eyes light up it is though a thousand yellow suns are spilling out their warmth on Erin’s barren rock.

And even now, body cracked and broken, Holtz’s soul shines through and Erin lingers in her orbit, not too near and not too far, and breathes her hope on the seeds of their new-found purpose.

Holtz’s body slowly mends and reforms and it takes time but it is time they have now, and the broken bones start to knit and the bruises fade into yellow twinges and purple reminders.

She’s young and fit, and while there are physical hurdles to stumble over Holtz can bounce when she hits the ground too hard. She grins and pushes herself back up and the others shake their heads and implore her to slow down, to take her time, she doesn’t have to impress them _every single day_.

It’s light and said half-joking; Erin knows they are simply happy to have Holtz alive and on the mend. But their words are unthinking, a stimulus for a reflexive startle response and Holtz absorbs and ignores their words and continues to pulse out her bright light, a kind of desperate signal.

Laughs when she is clumsy and her reactions fail.

“Whoops!”

Shrugs when the potential peters out.

“Huh. Crazy idea anyway.”

Erin observes, over days and weeks, and she sees the light waver. There’s a message in the eyes that sparkle for the benefit of others, then dull when cast over the unproductive mess of her workbench. Her _soul_ dulls, like a proud monument left too long in an acid rain.

It’s not like before.

There’s a slightly manic edge to everything Holtz does, now. She still lives and works in her old unchecked and untamed manner but it’s never born of the same ease, and the joyful spark Erin has come to admire is gone. There’s a cruelty in the way Holtz throws herself at her projects, harsh and fierce and desperate and then stumbling to a crushing, sudden halt. A jolt as all the ideas and all the potential stack up and slam into the barrier of biology. A slump and a tiny sigh.

Erin sees her staring at her fingers sometimes, clenching them to catch the tremble and opening them. Perplexion shaping her brow and frustration curling her lip.

It’s not like before, and Erin struggles to reconcile the observables with the months of data stored and ordered in her head.

She struggles to balance their equation, too, the newfound hypothesis in her heart. The frustration is enough to throw up an unknown variable that twists at their bond. A harshness not fit to leave Holtz’s lips issues forth when the others are not there and it lies like scorched earth and ash between them.

Cause and effect; they are _uncertain_ , and Erin does not dare.

It’s been weeks, and Erin sits in the common area with the others, not too near but not too far from Holtz’s dimmed light and dwindling warmth, their orbits kept at a reserved distance.

There’s a small crash from the upstairs lab, not loud enough or catastrophic enough to cause alarm. Before they would have ignored it, waited for the next bang or crash or shouted apology or maniacal laughter to signal their normality.

A normality where Holtz is okay, and they are okay.

Now Erin finds herself waiting for the silence that follows the crash, her mind filling in the stretching seconds with sadness and possibilities and probabilities and uncertainty.

She almost doesn’t dare, but she can’t help but care. She turns for the stairs and the others watch her go, and they won’t follow because they _know_.

“Holtz?”

There’s mess on the floor, evidence of frustration a clumsy tableau all over the workbench. A notebook in the centre, haloed by failure and Erin recognises her own loops and curls in the handwriting.

An idea she’d had, from before, when they had stayed up all night pushing the boundaries of science and circling about each other, all closeness and potential and gravity.

Holtz had promised to build her idea in hot metal and brilliant electricity, to weld her will into creation.

Holtz would promise Erin the stars if it made her smile, Erin knows, and her lips quirk and yet a melancholy settles over her. Because unless her biology can match the reach of her mind Holtz’s grasp will forever fall short now.

But there is a gladness there, too. Of all the endless, infinite possibilities this is not the worst that could have happened. In another life, in another universe, Holtz could have been much more seriously injured.

The theory of many worlds suggests that for every event unfolded, for every decision made, for every random encounter another thread is born. A whole new world set to run in parallel, fundamentally different in great or small ways.

In those many worlds, Holtz could be dead; never to wake from her hospital bed, or killed outright. In just so many worlds, it could have been Erin lying injured or dead. Or they might be alive, but never destined to meet. Or one or the other could never have even been born.

At least in this universe, in this world, they are alive and together, despite the hurt, despite their uncertainty.

And that is close enough to their normality for Erin to rejoice in but it is different enough to push Holtz off balance, her reaction off kilter. Her potential still as great, her criticality supermassive but her every event a misfire. Creation spluttered out before it learns to crawl.

Erin knows all Holtz needs to do is adjust the parameters, discard the superfluous, create a new experiment with what they have been given. Work a new equation, re-route the flow of energy into something slower, a hushed release rather than an explosion.

And give it time.

But Holtz is Holtz, and she doesn’t know how to do any of that. Because she’s all soul and she pushes her soul over mind and matter until her matter bows under the strain and her mind buckles.

Erin comes closer, crouches in front of the desk. Holtz is crunched up in the gloom, her head down and hands limp at her sides.

Erin drops slowly to her knees and shuffles forward into Holtz’s space, doesn’t care that the floor is dirty and that burnt debris makes its mark on her jeans. She hesitates only for a single space between moments and takes Holtz's hands, notes how they shake.

“Holtz?”

“I tried, Erin. I tried to do the, uh, uh –”

Her face crinkles into lines and sobs and Erin crumples closer to her.

“Oh. Oh, Holtz. It’s okay, we were going to look at that together, remember?”

“I wanted to do it. For you. I’ve been s-so bad to you.”

“No, no, you weren’t bad. We just have to figure this out, okay?”

“I can’t. I can’t. I’m bro-ken.”

Her voice breaks and her face finally breaks and Erin breaks with her on the last word.

It’s an awkward fit, too much forced in a tight space but Erin crawls fully under the desk to curl next to Holtz’s shaking form. And somehow they fit together like they always did before, oddly intertwined and imperfect.

Erin’s long legs stick out from beneath the steel desk, and her body protests the angle but she curls an arm around Holtz and pulls her into a sideways hug, careful not to crush the still healing body. Presses a kiss to her head, the mess of blonde haphazardly heaped to cover the shorter tufts and the pink scar that reads like an angry protest.

Speaks softly, a little defiantly.

“I’m here for you, Holtz. You can’t push me away any more, I won’t let you. We’ll find a way to fix this together. Okay?”

Holtz nods, dumbly, face shattered and eyes turned down. She only wanted to give Erin the stars.

Instead, for the time being, Erin vows to show her stars and souls beyond measure in the creation all around them, beauty without compare in the poetry of reality. To balance their equation and perhaps explore the theories that drive the thing between them. They can work on pushing the boundaries of science later.

“I-I love you, Holtz. You know that. Broken bits and all.”

Holtz doesn’t answer. Erin isn’t sure she even heard the whispered declaration. They sit in their temple surrounded by art, their perfect machine shattered by failures of biology, and they just breathe in each other’s souls for a time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is weird. Ask me what I have been smoking, over on [tumblr](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/). If you want to.


	4. On Space and Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this took so long. I may or may not have started and trashed this thing six or seven times trying to find the tone... and then I definitely did get distracted by Holtzbert week!
> 
> Anyway, slightly different to previous chapters. A companion, if you will.

 

It happened so fast.

She shouldn’t have been showing off. But Erin was there, and Erin makes her daring and she rather liked the idea of being the chivalrous suitor in the face of obstacles.

Facing down a ghost of terrifying fury, all demon eyes and dripping hate, it wasn’t like laying a coat across a puddle. But it’s what they know.

And even as the malevolence connected with her ribs, she didn’t regret a thing. Because Erin was there, and she would have died to protect Erin from that _hatred_.

It didn’t hurt when she hit the wall. She did hear the smack of time catching up with her, rattling in her head and echoing off the solid concrete.

She could only drop to the floor, then, red and black in her vision.

“Holtz!”

She wanted to say _Erin_.

 

* * *

 

It was so very, very dark after that.

Not silent; not empty. Noises about her, sounds distorted and distant like monsters calling from a nightmare.

Numbness in her body. Dryness in her mouth, cotton in her ears and wool in her head, fire in her memory.

But.

A constant warmth light on her fingers, fingers that never seemed attached to the rest of her.

“Holtz.”

Clear, breaking through, but sad.

She wanted to squeeze back and say _Erin_.

 

* * *

 

_Time passes._

_Peculiar saying._

_Some time later._

_More than a few, less than too many, every now and then._

_Some time, sometimes._

_Time to go._

_Fries with that._

_After._

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t know how long she’s been sat under her desk.

The small space is a sanctuary and also her cell. A retreat, and a sentence to sit and reckon the boundaries of her new world.

Space and time, and will and purpose.

The light beyond the edge of her little realm is dim and the shadows are soft, but she doesn’t know if that’s because it’s getting dark outside or because one of the ceiling lights is still broken or because she never turned the desk lamp on when she came into the lab.

It’s quiet now too, after the crash of the last frustration left her staring and dumb.

“–oltz?”

She doesn’t remember everything, doesn’t see clearly, cannot predict. Her reality and perceptions bent and uncertain. Her concepts reduced to _now_ and _not now_ , the level of a child.

Her broken body screams at her, still. Her brain, it itches and aches. Her mind hisses at her and spits shades of cowardice and shame when her hands shake and her actions peter out.

They say time is a healer, but she doesn’t know how that can be true.

Time is nothing so tangible as that.

Time has structure of course, not tall or wide or deep but equally measurable. Events occur in sequence, waypoints marked on a map of one dimension.

And that sequence runs only one way, that’s an undeniable certainty. She cannot go back to the before, to the _not now_.

She can’t work like she did before the event. Holtz knows she’ll never spend her energy so effectively, never set free her creations so easily. The doctors told her that. The others, they don’t say it, they tell her to slow down.

Take her time.

Holtz wishes she could own her time the way she used to, fill it with her energy and her creations and her love for so many things and oh, _Erin_. There was so much she had wanted to do with _that_ , that undefined thing between them that vibrated with potential and _perhaps_.

“–igure this out –”

She’s not really listening to the voice. Not listening to the weave of words between the seconds. Not listening to the puffs of her own hot breath counting the beat either, not heeding the stinging tears dripping a counterpoint from her eyes.

Because really, time is just a construct of the human condition. A way to regulate and manage and make sense of an observable reality. Events are arbitrary, marks on a face, a way to stop the madness of an existence without direction.

 _Make_ time.

Holtz wonders if she can ever make enough time; enough tick tocks to stop her madness and to right her direction.

Holtz knows there’s a solution hidden in the time yet to come, the events yet to occur. Something that could twist the line and slow the time and point her a new way.

“–ogether.”

The words are nearer than she expects, warmth breath into her hair and a strong arm about her shoulder.

Oh, _Erin_. Why is she here, in a world without meaning?

Erin was an unexpected waypoint on her timeline. Some sort of signal flare, strong as a siren song, a bright point of light pulling her forward, beaming out rapid and fearless and lighting her way to more and more wild and perfect events and _fuck_ , how well they danced their dance of discovery together.

Erin is brilliance, and together they were _magic_.

But Holtz is dull, now.

Erin’s light reaches her still. A pale glow glimpsed beyond the edges of the cold blue-black of the void.

There was a question, and Holtz nods. But it’s a falsehood. Erin should go. She doesn’t want to suck Erin’s warm yellow light into her black pit, a place so strange and beyond the scope of observation that nothing can be held as truth. A place so disharmonious and misaligned with reason. A place from which she is _sure_ there can be no escape.

It's not fair.

She wanted to hold Erin’s sunlight in her hands, to cast it high amongst the heavens and gift her infinite starlight in return.

She can’t _reach_ , and their shine is dimmed, and she can’t stop the desperate black from stealing the low remains of their combined glow.

She tried to cast Erin out, to fling her to sit free amongst the other stars, implores her with harsh word and cruel action to not bother with her own dwindling and sorry self.

But Erin comes back as though linked by a platinum tether, holds her trembling hand and kisses her cracked head.

A broken body Holtz can deal with; she can always bound across and clamber over sticking points and stumbling blocks. But the crack in her head is a _chasm_ , cleft between who she was and who she is become.

A physical barrier that shifts when she approaches, to bend her perception, and to alter her own self like a funhouse mirror or the shifting surface of the deep. Things look different, things feel wrong. Familiar connections don’t spark the way they used to, ideas becoming fat formless shapes in her mind, too unwieldy and bent to pass eloquently from her tongue, from her fingers.

And Holtz is nothing without the idea crafted out into creation.

Erin tries to tell her otherwise.

The others see it better. They tell her she does not need to impress them, because they _know_. They dress it up in words of love and care and _time_ and Holtz knows it was never meant to be a poison slipped to her over days and weeks and months, but the implication is a festering truth.

But Erin. Erin is blinded by the memory of their power, still bound by the sheer gravitational pull of the _thing_ between them.

Erin tells her. Sits in the dangerous influence of her black crush and holds her shaking, traitorous hand and says three words that are a sawing, agonising truth against her soul.

Soul. Such a strange concept, no scientific basis there at all. But she has seen things in her life to make her question, heard things to make her ponder. Met Erin, who made her wonder. Erin, who has a brighter soul than any.

Perhaps she should try to find her own.

“–ken bits and all.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eagle-eyed viewers may notice the chapter count went up, oops.
> 
> And [tumblr](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/), if you're into stuff like that.


	5. Proof, an Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue, and also a beginning.

 

Her hands don’t shake, placed careful and unbelieving against the firm curve of Erin’s breasts.

Erin bends into her touch. She can feel the nipples stiffen under her steady palms, can feel the thunderous heartbeat rolling closer, closer. A strike, lightning, when she squeezes and Erin hisses her appreciation.

Cause and effect, the simplest of mechanical principles.

She notes how causality makes her own body react, and it’s low heat radiated from the most hesitant flicker of flame but it still _burns_ and it’s been so long since she felt that scorch.

Her hands don’t shake, drifting slow and tender down Erin’s sides, down across the bumps of ribs and the hollows of hips.

It’s like tracing the outline of a dream, a familiar shape and they never did this before, oh they never did _this_ before but still the connections spark to life. And it’s like pouring kerosene on that uncertain flame and she burns quicker, hotter and pushes their bodies closer.

Erin hums, low and thready and she can taste the desire in the sound and in the air, now.

Action, reaction.

Her hands shake a little, when her fingertips trace down, down and meet hot and molten desire and it’s overwhelming and her hands tremble and her lip trembles with it. She frowns, bites her lip to stop the frustration and blinks her eyes rapidly to clear them.

Erin kisses her neck, her cheek in the soft space right below the ear and places her own steady hand over hers. Not a guide, an encouragement.

A whisper, a gift.

“It’s ok, Holtz. I’m nervous too.”

She lets out a blast of air, half a thankful sob and half _Erin_.

Turns her face to meet the blessing lips. Her own lips don’t need to spin tapestries of eloquence, they need only to press and part in a gentle way, a simple way, a companion to their joined hands moving below.

A healing touch, to be laid on her own form later. To ease her broken body and smooth the cracks, perhaps even help her build a bridge over the gap in her mind. A rickety crossing. Just a rope to tiptoe across, arms flailing and heart pounding. She might still fall, from time to time.

That delicate connection can be strengthened, though, made safer and added to and built upon by successive pilgrim thoughts; clever and daring designs of wooden slat and immovable stone and steel tension and unwavering faith and force of belief.

Erin is her pathfinder, who forged ahead brave and bold, and will come to be her guardian. To guide the thoughts on their weary travels, help the lost ideas to find their route.

Erin will promise to protect her from invading misery and greet her paraded emotions with warmth and cheer.

Erin will try and catch her when she stumbles and falls into her chasm; when she jumps Erin will dive down after her.

She is undeserving, but she _loves_ Erin, so she will let Erin try.

But for now she wishes only to feel the fire, slow burn or raging hot, and fanned to a careful inferno. To give Erin her best, and it doesn’t matter that it’s not perfect because Erin _loves her_ , broken bits and all.

“Holtz! Oh...”

Erin curves, and gasps and moans through small shudders. Erin comes softly apart beneath her, and it’s light bursting through the gap between them and it’s everything she wants and it’s _right_. She’ll be alright.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goddammit.
> 
> Anyway this one's for dnoctiluca since you like this weird thing so much :p
> 
> [Tumblr](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/), I'm very non-scary.


End file.
